Are you part of the NICU club? Do you have a child who is still struggling with the effects of being born too soon from preeclampsia? Share your concerns and stories here among parents who have been there.

Our NICU was great. 24 hour visiting, max 2 people at a time, one of whom had to be a parent. No gowns, just hand scrubbing. We were encouraged to be there for doctors rounds. There were 2 'quiet' hours a day, during shift changes when you were not allowed in there, but even that was flexible if the need arose. Ellie was Christened during a quiet hour.

We were encouraged to containment hold Ellie from the 2nd day (she was stable from the start), and by day 6 Ellie had her first cuddles with both of us. After that we had lots of 'kangaroo care' and were shown how to lift her out of the incubator for that. We always had a nurse to help us with the monitor wires etc, but we lifted Ellie out from about 10 days old. We changed nappies and topped and tailed her from less than 1wk old. The attitude was that Ellie was our baby and we should do as much as possible for her. We also tubefed her with assistance. We were also encourage to hold Ellie after the nurses had done the 'nasty' things to her, so she knew we only did 'nice' things!

When Ellie was taken ill they were wonderful, and we were given a room to stay in, with meals provided (not that we were interested in eating). The doctors and nurses were so caring, and they even looked after us after Ellie died at 5am. Ellie's nurse was assigned to us for the day, and we were able to stay in the room at the hospital until we were ready to leave. They took photos for us, and even gave us a disposable camera so we could take photos of our own.

The strange thing about this experience is that I was dreading going to this hospital. I had moved house 3 years previously but had not changed my Dr as I worked 30 miles from home and it was actually easier to get to a DR closer to work. The hospital who looked after most of my antenatal care was in an affluent area and the one where I actually had Ellie was in a slightly 'rough' area. I am soooo grateful that Ellie wasnt born at the first one, I have since discovered that we would have been separated immediately due to lack of NICU beds in the 'affluent' area!

24 hour visiting except for shift changes, scrubing, no gowns, and anyone could visit, but limited to 2 people at one time (and one had to be a parent or a grandparent).
They did bend the rules a little bit for us and let 3 people in so that we could bring in our oldest son to see Mason (one to hold the baby one to hold him hehe)

Great Topic! Can we forward these to all the hospitals for "continuing education"?

We had a great NICU experience. I was glad that we could designate only 4 others to visit. To be quite honest, I don't trust some of our relatives to stay away when they are sick - even now! Plus, he was at the hospital that my dad had worked at for 20 years! Here is my delimma. Ian was born in another city. So if I deliver early this time we have a whole new place to adjust to. I am actually nervous about that.

Our NICU is pretty good as far as rules, of course we have to scrub and wear gowns, and since there is a flu scare going on, no children allowed. They also had this rule on that no one other than parents can visit, however just found out yesterday that now they are allowing grandparents in as well. The nurses are pretty good most of the time, but I don't like the primary nurse my son has. For eg, yesterday when we went to see him we noticed the gavage tube out of his nose. When we pointed it out to her, she said casually "check to see if the bed is wet which means the milk did not go in him" and then she walked away. We were kind of taken aback by the comment. Also, I noticed some drainage from his eye and she said it was no big deal. When I mentioned it to the nurse practitioner she immediately put in orders for his eye to be massaged every feed and to keep an eye on it. I think it depends on each nurse for your NICU experience. Our first son was in the NICU for 2 mths and his primary nurse was just wonderful. With this one, I am planning to ask her to be changed. Also, some nurses allow us to take our baby out of the isolette, some dont like it, almost like being territorial. Calls at all times are encouraged and visits as well, except for during shift changes.

Well that was sneaky, Ms Sayonib[;)]! I knew that you had posted before. Congratulations, I guess that little critter had no intention of staying put until February. When was his birthday, how big etc.? How are you guys doing? I remember that you had some wickedly high BP readings.

Hi Catherine,
I had a real scary time early Jan. was on bedrest and bp was looking fine until the 1st when suddenly I started experiencing the dreaded high abdominal pain. Called the dr, rushed to the hospital and my bp was 270/170. In like a few secs there were nurses and docs all over, they gave me shots to keep me from seizuring and to develop the baby's lungs and the baby was born after an emergency c-section. They took him out on time for the placenta had already started abrupting but he came out screaming at the top of his lungs. He was born at 31 weeks and 5 days at 3 pounds. I took some more time to recover since HELLP syndrome set in and my blood platelets went way down and I started bleeding through the mouth and it was just awful. I kept on thinking this is wierd since when my first son was born at 32 wks due to preclampsia I was up and about in 3 days. The drs did not tell me anything and nor did my husband for they were trying to keep me calm for my bp was not going down as well.
My baby is doing fine, and so am I. Thanks for asking and remembering,

The number one thing that I appreciated at our NICU, which I don't think anybody else mentioned, Max's medical records were entirely open to us. There were two binders on the desk next to his isolette. We could come in anytime and read lab results, nurses daily report, etc. Nobody had to be there when we read it. And if we had questions we would just tell the doc on duty that day and they would come by when they had a chance. It kept us very up to date on what was going on and kept us involved in making medical decisions for Max. Another thing most of you didn't mention. My DH and I felt very involved in Max's medical care and only life threatening decisions did not involve us. And let me tell you, we had a lot to say about his course of medical care because we are both opinionated (me more so than DH)

Other than that, I think our experience was pretty much the same. There were more shift changes were we couldn't go in (3-4 a day), but anyone could visit with parent (as long as older than 18) if they were a sibling of the baby they had to be older than 4. We were able to hold Max as soon as he was on conventional vent (couldn't hold when on osciallator, tubing too stiff) and he was in stable condition. We were allowed to peronalize his area and even became friends with some of the nurses.

Just read Kara's post and wanted to say that Ellie's records were open to us too. They were always there for us to read whenever we wanted. I didnt realise for the first few days and when I read them for the first time there was a funny moment reading about Ellie's two grandmothers coming to visit her when she was just born....Ellie only had one surviving grandmother, the other 'granny'was my mum's much younger friend!
It was a great help knowing we could just read the notes and didnt have to ask permission.

I delivered Evan at Northside Hospital in Atlanta, GA. To answer Aimee's question on the other thread. I am sorry it is a month late. I had a good and bad NICU experience. We were also kicked out when we had new admits to our pod in the NICU. I would consider it to be a very large NICU department but I dont have alot experience with that. When we were in the NICU and my son was on CPAP one nurse wouldn't let us hold him, we found out 3 days later it was her(the nurse's)preference. I guess it would have been too much work for her. After he was there for 3 day we got another nurse and the rest of our experience was great. Expecially when we were moved to the feed and grow side. All the nurses there were great. They let my sister feed Evan his 5:00 am bottle then I would feed his 9:00 and 5:00, and my mom would feed him is 1:00pm bottle. Everyone there treated my sister and mom like they were welcome and of course my husband and I were treated so kindly. Also we had a lot of visitors in the NICU and it was ok the only rules about that was only 2 people at the bedside at a time, one of the 4 of us(me,husband,mom,or sister)I got to choose 3 people that could visit without me, had escort others and no one under 12 years old.

We had a wonderful NICU. It was actually a special care nursery which, I beleive is only slightly different in that any babies under 2lbs or born earlier than 31 weeks were transferred to another hospital. Travis is the smallest baby they've kept there since opening this nursery 3 years ago.

The nurses were wonderful about keeping us updated and since the unit is fairly new, for a while Travis was the only baby in the special care unit and all kinds of rules were bent for us because there were not other patients and parents to consider. Two visitors were allowed when other patients were there (as many as we wished within reason if he was the only one), and no gowns had to be worn. One woman had to wear a mask because of a fever blister, but usually not an issue because if you were sick, you were asked not to visit. The records were open and the only time I was actually kicked out was when another baby in critical condition was in there and being worked on and transferred. In fact, they eventually asked me to come in to take Travis to the back room because they needed their nursing staff to help with the critical baby and Travis was fussy and wanted his mommy. (He was about ready to go home at that point anyway) The nurses were wonderful and grew so attached to Travis because there weren't a lot of babies that were there as long as he was (8 wks).[:D]